Work on Paper

Crayon on paper

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53.8 x 38.2 (cm)

21.2 x 15.0 (inch)

Susumu Koshimizu was born in 1944 in Japan. He graduated from Sculpture Department, Tama Art University and later became one of the key members of Mono-ha, a pioneering art movement that emerged in Tokyo in the mid-1960s whose artists, instead of making traditional representational artworks, explored materials and their properties in reaction to what they saw as ruthless development and industrialisation in Japan.

 

When the monthly magazine "Ehime-Zasshi" was launched in 1988, Koshimizu illustrated the first 100 magazine covers. This exhibition features a caleful selection of the precious original illustrations, which have never been shown outside of print media, accompanied by "words" from Koshimizu.

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"13 red plates are floating on the water. The water is filled on the tabletop. In other words, there are 13 red plates on the table and those plates are swaying on the water. The red plates also resemble flower petals. I am making such artwork at the moment. I tried to draw to see how it would look like if the 13 plates were all lined up. To take colours into sculptures is the technique I often apply. I choose red a lot, why I wonder. Long time ago I was told I had no sense of colour. My friend was perhaps right to say so. I don’t think I take colours as ‘colour schemes’. Colours are always equivalent to material values. It is the existence of ‘red’, it is the material of ‘blue’. ‘Tree’ exists for carving material, so does ‘stone’, ‘red’ exists for carving material as well, so does ‘blue’. I assume I choose ‘red’ for the reason I sense its overwhelming presence."